This evening, I took my camera, telephoto lens and new teleconverter, and three rolls of film to Wildwood Metropark. I burned through two of the three rolls between about 6:45pm and 8:00pm—by then, I’d lost so much light that it was time to go home. I didn’t get to use the teleconverter because the 7pm light was already too faint. I wonder how practical it’s really going to be.
My original intention had been to photograph bikers and bladers; however, there weren’t very many out tonight, and I’m just not patient enough to sit on a picnic table and wait for people to pass by while I’m losing light by minutes. So, I ended up taking lots of pictures of flowers and bumblebees and architecture and trees and just a few of bikers and bladers. Two rolls’ worth… hopefully something good will come out of it.
If nothing else, I plan to do this every week just to get my reflexes sharper and get my eye for composition trained a little better. I missed just as many photos as I took today, mainly from not getting my camera focused in time. I lost a perfectly good shot of a male cardinal, simply because I turned my focus to closer instead of farther, and didn’t manage to fix my error before he flew away. There were a few that I missed simply because I didn’t have the right lens with me—I’d planned to take long-distance action shots, and purposefully left the normal and wide-angle lenses at home.
One thing I’d forgotten about photographing in a normal public place (as opposed to a festival): it’s fun to see something that no one else sees, in a pattern or a shadow or a particular form, and have people try to see what you’re taking a picture of. Nope, there’s not a bird up in that tree; I think the gnarled tree is cool all by itself. But keep gawking, and maybe I’ll take a picture of your goofy ass. Heh.